A blog for people who already know grammar, spelling, their Strunk & White and Chicago Manual of Style, etc, etc...but want to be the best writers they can be.
I boil words out of submitted samples to make the writing as tight and clean as possible, without changing content or tone.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Boiling a Zombie Master

I review a
lot of zombie books, but when I want to just read one for fun because I know
it'll be great, I turn to Joe McKinney. Author of The
Savage Dead (which you can and should preorder now from Amazon), Dead City,
The Crossing, and lots of other action-packed, suspense-filled thrillers, Joe
was kind enough to provide me with a 490-word piece of nonfiction, In Praise of Spooky Old Buildings.

It's a
charming homage to a land that once was, and a sad sigh for the spread of that
blight we call suburbia. The challenge here will be keeping the nostalgic tone
as we boil things down.

It's both an
honor and intimidating as hell to work with a piece from one of my favorite authors.
Let's see what we can do with it.

The Original:

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, out trick-or-treating with
my friends. My costume was one of my
Mom’s old slips, upon which I’d written Id, Ego and Superego. You guessed it. I was a Freudian Slip.

The loot gathering was good that year, because I grew up in
a rather affluent suburb. (“Where their
lawns were wide and their minds narrow,” to quote Ernest Hemingway.)

But it didn’t seem so terribly oppressive then. In fact, I rather enjoyed those days. My neighborhood was on the edge of what had
once been a vast cotton farm, many thousands of acres wide. By the time I came along, the fields had run
to riot and a dense forest of trees grew where once there had been
furrows. It was a marshland full of deer
and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator
sunning itself on the banks of some scummed over little pond. My friends and I spent our summers roaming
that empty landscape, our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach
like we were the Green Berets on patrol on the border of Cambodia. We boys were like gods then, carving empires
of the imagination from the air on a daily basis.

But those fields weren’t entirely empty. There was something else in there with us
besides tall weeds and swamp trees. Just
a few hundred yards in from the fence that was supposed to keep us out, hidden
behind a large copse of trees, was what I guess was an old cotton processing
facility. It was little more than three
large, interconnected metal silos, nearly every inch of which was covered with
graffiti. But in its moldering, rusting
decay I found it resplendent. I was
drawn to it in much the same way as water finds its own level. There was an irresistible gravity around that
abandoned structure that both held me hostage and set my mind free. It was like a flint for my imagination, for
with the smallest of effort I found I could turn those silos into cities, the
loose machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars. That lonely collection of silos took me to
dark and apocalyptic places. And I loved
every minute of it.

But that Halloween, as we wandered the neighborhood,
collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that would, within the
coming year, spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into the empty
fields we loved so much. Cookie cutter
houses would take the place of my beloved cotton processing silos, and another
empty place on the map would get filled in with names like Spring Forest Lane
and Oak Terrace and Verbena Drive.

But for that night, that magical last night of October 1983,
the palace of my imagination was still intact, sitting like a sentinel at the
outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

The Condensation:

Houston, 1983 - I was thirteen, out
trick-or-treating with my friends. My
costume was one of my Mom’s old slips, upon which I’d written Id, Ego and
Superego. You guessed it. I was a Freudian Slip.

One doesn't
trick-or-treat "in", so we can boil "out". Ditto the
"my" in "my friends." Because he's trick-or-treating, we
don't need to say that it's a costume.

The
"I'd" so close to "Id" made my brain stutter a little, so
despite that the phrase is innocuous and might not need it, let's replace
"upon which I'd written" with "scrawled with".

We can
combined the last two sentences, eliminating the "I was".

Houston,
1983 - I was thirteen, trick-or-treating with friends. I wore one of my Mom’s old slips, scrawled
with Id, Ego and Superego. You guessed
it; a Freudian Slip.

The loot gathering was good that
year, because I grew up in a rather affluent suburb. (“Where their lawns were wide and their minds
narrow,” to quote Ernest Hemingway.)

We don't need
to say it was that year, because we've already said it's 1983. We can also
enmesh the two thoughts--the what and the why--into a single, tighter sentence.
In the process, "rather" is clutter.

The quote and
attribution we can almost leave alone--what other Hemingway would we quote?--though
we can dispose of the parenthesis.

We
gathered tons of loot in that affluent suburb.
“Where their lawns were wide and their minds narrow,” to quote
Hemingway.

But it didn’t seem so terribly
oppressive then. In fact, I rather
enjoyed those days. My neighborhood was
on the edge of what had once been a vast cotton farm, many thousands of acres
wide. By the time I came along, the
fields had run to riot and a dense forest of trees grew where once there had
been furrows. It was a marshland full of
deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild hogs and even the occasional alligator
sunning itself on the banks of some scummed over little pond. My friends and I spent our summers roaming
that empty landscape, our dogs by our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach
like we were the Green Berets on patrol on the border of Cambodia. We boys were like gods then, carving empires
of the imagination from the air on a daily basis.

This is a
large paragraph. As usual, we'll address that if necessary after we see what
boils out.

I think we
can boil out the "but", because it naturally follows from the
previous sentence...

...and now a
small tirade on the word "seem". There are few situations where
"seem" should be used--the best example being when the POV character
is guessing as to the thoughts or feelings of another character. Otherwise,
"seem" might as well be "was", because even if it's not
true, from the perspective of the narrator it is. Thus, while "seem"
is not as ubiquitous as "to be" (and all its conjugations, especially
"was"), it stands out like a bright pink whack-a-mole when we're
looking for ways to tighten our prose. The way Stephen King feels about
adverbs? Yeah, that's how I feel about "seem". So anyway...

We can omit
the "terribly", or omit the "oppressive" and use
"terrible".

"In
fact" is clutter, as is "rather".

I'm going to
separate these first two, boiled sentences out for the moment, because on the
final read we're going to merge them with the paragraph above.

It wasn't
so oppressive then. I rather enjoyed
those days.

Moving on,
"was on the edge of" = "bordered", and "what had once
been a vast" = "a former", and we can cut the "vast"
because it's redundant with the thousands of acres (from which we can boil
"many", because "thousands" is already plural.)

"By the
time I came along" is clutter, because we're talking about 1983, when the
author was thirteen--we don't need to establish the time again.

"Forest
of trees" = "forest"; we'd only need to specify if we wanted to
identify a type of trees, or if we were being allegorical ("forest of
telephone poles", for example)... Otherwise, forests are "of
trees" by definition. "grew where once there had been furrows" =
"had overgrown old furrows".

...but this
clashes with the next paragraph, where the landscape is referred to as
"those fields". I think, then, that we need to eliminate (as opposed
to boil out) the word "dense"--though this is a guess on my part, and
were this a real editing job I'd of course discuss it with the author first.

The next
line's a doozy, because it rambles on purpose, but I can't help but look at
that "It was" and think that there's a better way to say it. The
solution is to take this already run-on sentence and combine it with the one
before it. Other than that, "scummed over" needs a hyphen, and while
we could dispose of "little" in "little pond", there is a
minor loss of content there, and that'd be breaking the rules of my own blog.

"My
friends and I" = "We", and I think "our summers" needs
to go, both because it can be boiled out and because it wasn't just summers, as
evidenced by the Halloween references throughout. I'm inclined to boil out the
"our" before "our dogs", but am afraid that this might
clash with the wild dogs from the previous sentence, so we'll leave it in.
"like we were the" can lose everything but the "like",
though, "on patrol on" = "patrolling", and "border of
Cambodia" = "Cambodian border".

On a side
note, mentioning the Cambodian border here is an excellent way to re-anchor us
in the mindset of a thirteen-year-old in 1983; it carries with it all the
baggage of
too-young-to-have-experienced-Vietnam-but-old-enough-to-carry-it-with-us that
"the jungle" wouldn't have. It's small but significant choices like
this that make extraordinary writing look easy.

"We boys"
can lose the "boys", and "like gods" can lose the
"like", and we can boil out "then". As empires can only be
carved from the air in the imagination, we can boil out "of the
imagination", and given the general precociousness of boys given a place
to play, we can boil out "on a daily basis".

Looking at
the final product, we can combine the last two sentences and make them more
active still.

My
neighborhood bordered a former cotton farm, thousands of acres wide. The fields had run to riot, old furrows
overgrown by a marshy forest full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild
hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some
scummed-over little pond. Our dogs by
our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like Green Berets patrolling the
Cambodian border, we roamed that empty landscape as gods, carving empires from
the air.

But those fields weren’t entirely
empty. There was something else in there
with us besides tall weeds and swamp trees.
Just a few hundred yards in from the fence that was supposed to keep us
out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, was what I guess was an old cotton
processing facility. It was little more
than three large, interconnected metal silos, nearly every inch of which was
covered with graffiti. But in its
moldering, rusting decay I found it resplendent. I was drawn to it in much the same way as
water finds its own level. There was an
irresistible gravity around that abandoned structure that both held me hostage
and set my mind free. It was like a
flint for my imagination, for with the smallest of effort I found I could turn
those silos into cities, the loose machine parts scattered around them into a
cemetery of dead cars. That lonely
collection of silos took me to dark and apocalyptic places. And I loved every minute of it.

The first
sentence can be eliminated entirely--we already know that the fields were full
of trees and dogs and hogs and the occasional alligator.

"There
was something else in there" = "Something [verbed] there". I'm going
to go with "brooded", because it seems appropriate to me given the
apocalyptic atmosphere Joe's imagination gave the building. It also allows us
to boil out "with us".

"Just"
is clutter, as is "in", and "that was supposed" =
"erected". In "was what I guess was", we've got too many
"was"es, so let's replace the first with a verb... I'll go with
"lurked". On that same note, let's change "old" to
"abandoned", which conveys the same information, plus a little more--and
allows us to boil out the "abandoned" that comes next, too. We can
boil out "what I guess was" because whether or not the author is
ultimately right on that score isn't relevant.

We can boil
out "it was", and as delicious as it is that one of Joe's phrases
fails the "by zombies" test for passive voice, we can tighten up the
latter clause by making it active. And while I'm certain that every inch was
not literally covered in graffiti, the figurative nature of the phrase is
sufficiently strong that we can lose the "nearly" with no fear of misunderstanding.

We can
combine the next sentences' two parts into one single idea, and this makes a
great transition into the next paragraph... (I'm going to insert a paragraph
break here because (a) this one's pretty long, and (b) the physical presence of
the building and the author's impressions thereof are sufficiently different to
justify their own paragraphs.)

But
something brooded there besides tall weeds and swamp trees. A few hundred yards from the fence erected to
keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, lurked an abandoned cotton
processing facility. Little more than
three large, interconnected metal silos, graffiti covered every inch. But I found its moldering, rusting decay resplendent.

We can
combine the gravity analogy in the next two sentences, and split off the dual
hostage/freedom into its own sentence.

"It was
like" is clutter, as is "of", "for", "I
found", and even "could" (if "turn" gains an
"ed"). "Loose" can go, because if they weren't loose, they
wouldn't be parts and couldn't be scattered.

"That
lonely collection of silos" = "Those lonely silos"...and yes, I
like this adverb and think it should stay, King be damned!

The last
sentence of this paragraph is exactly the right cliche for the moment, but I
like it a bit better when merged with the previous sentence.

The
irresistible gravity around that structure drew me to it much as water finds
its own level. It held me hostage and set my mind free. A flint for my
imagination, with the smallest effort I turned those silos into cities, the
machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars. Those lonely silos took me to dark and
apocalyptic places, and I loved every minute of it.

But that Halloween, as we wandered
the neighborhood, collecting our loot, we happened by the new construction that
would, within the coming year, spread our neighborhood with crystalline
profusion into the empty fields we loved so much. Cookie cutter houses would take the place of
my beloved cotton processing silos, and another empty place on the map would
get filled in with names like Spring Forest Lane and Oak Terrace and Verbena
Drive.

Loot
collection brings us back to "that Halloween" without having to state
it.

"Within
the coming year" can be boiled out. If the construction wasn't imminent,
you'd not have stumbled across it at that time, so despite its seeming (gah!)
immediacy that the phrase adds, we can remove it and lose nothing.

As an
editorial comment, instead of eliminating (not boiling) the "empty"
here as we did above, I think it's more powerful if we instead emphasize it
with quotes; bereft of houses, those fields were chock full of childhoody
goodness that the expanding suburb would bleed out.

"would
take the place of" = "would overtake", and we know that the
silos were for cotton processing, and that they were beloved--calling them
"my" in this case emphasizes the ownership and emotional investment
to the point that calling them "beloved" here might actually
overpower the subtle poignancy of the comment.

"get
filled in" = "filling" (which we can use to replace the
"and"), and we don't need to call out the fact that the street names
are names, as long as it doesn't matter if the names are exactly accurate for
the area (a detail I don't know, and I'm not sure if Joe found important.
Again, a place to talk to the author). However, I think the relentless march of
suburbia can be reflected even better by pluralizing them.

But as
we wandered the neighborhood collecting our loot, we happened by the new
construction that would spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into
the "empty" fields we loved so much.
Cookie cutter houses would overtake my silos, filling another empty
place on the map with Spring Forest Lanes and Oak Terraces and Verbena Drives.

But for that night, that magical
last night of October 1983, the palace of my imagination was still intact,
sitting like a sentinel at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May that land forever live.

"But
for" read to me as "Except for" on my first read, and again when
I moved into condensation mode. For that reason I'm going to change
"for" to "on".

I don't think
that the redundancy on "that night" gains us anything, so let's boil
it out. For that matter, because we eliminated the "Halloween" in the
previous paragraph, we can replace "last night of October 1983" with
"Halloween".

I love the
Bradbury reference, and those who don't get it can look it up and find
something else wonderful to read!

But on
that magical Halloween, the palace of my imagination stood intact, a sentinel
at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May
that land forever live.

The Result:

As I
mentioned above, I'm going to combine those two lines I pulled out of the first
large paragraph into the preceding paragraph. That leaves us with:

Houston,
1983 - I was thirteen, trick-or-treating with friends. I wore one of my Mom’s old slips, scrawled
with Id, Ego and Superego. You guessed
it; a Freudian Slip.

We
gathered tons of loot in that affluent suburb, “[w]here their lawns were wide
and their minds narrow.” The oppression in Hemingway's quote notwithstanding, I
rather enjoyed those days.

My
neighborhood bordered a former cotton farm, thousands of acres wide. The fields had run to riot, old furrows
overgrown by a marshy forest full of deer and rabbits and wild dogs and wild
hogs and even the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of some
scummed-over little pond. Our dogs by
our sides, pellet guns gripped by the breach like Green Berets patrolling the
Cambodian border, we roamed that empty landscape as gods, carving empires from
the air.

But
something brooded there besides tall weeds and swamp trees. A few hundred yards from the fence erected to
keep us out, hidden behind a large copse of trees, lurked an abandoned cotton
processing facility. Little more than
three large, interconnected metal silos, graffiti covered every inch. But I found its moldering, rusting decay resplendent.

The
irresistible gravity around that structure drew me to it much as water finds
its own level. It held me hostage and set my mind free. A flint for my
imagination, with the smallest effort I turned those silos into cities, the
machine parts scattered around them into a cemetery of dead cars. Those lonely silos took me to dark and
apocalyptic places, and I loved every minute of it.

But as
we wandered the neighborhood collecting our loot, we happened by the new
construction that would spread our neighborhood with crystalline profusion into
the "empty" fields we loved so much.
Cookie cutter houses would overtake my silos, filling another empty
place on the map with Spring Forest Lanes and Oak Terraces and Verbena Drives.

But on
that magical Halloween, the palace of my imagination stood intact, a sentinel
at the outskirts of my own October Country.

May
that land forever live.

So the final
tally is 345 words down from 490, a 30% reduction. I believe I succeeded in
preserving the mingled melancholy and nostalgia. What do you think?